Family Tree – Mother’s Line
My mother grew up in Boyle Heights which is a couple hundred yards north of downtown Los Angeles. Her parents were Basque having arrived in the USA from Spain just after the start of the 20th century. Her father was Alfonzo Cordoba, a political idealist, or anarchist depending upon your point of view. In those days Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights (Northeast Los Angeles) was made up mostly of Italians, Jews and Russians. Alfonzo worked as a barber on north Main Street and wrote/edited/published a socialist newspaper ( the University of California at Berkeley Library has a few issues in their archives). He helped organize and participated in left wing political rallies, parading up and down Main & Broadway. In addition, he spent two weeks in jail as one of the usual suspects for an attempted bombing of the Los Angeles Times building.
His outlook on life made my mother's youth somewhat unusual. He and his wife had six children. Four boys – names: Universe. Sol, Progress and Florile, Two girls – names: Love, and my mother, Aurora. My mother never ate anything but fruit, nuts and vegetables until she was 27 years old and met my father. My mother grew up in a house that had a piano but no radio, comic books or anything resembling an unwholesome influence. My mother said that she and her brothers had almost no exposure to any kind of commercial entertainment. So much so, that when they went together to their first movie (the Marx Brothers) they laughed so loud and so hard they were made to leave the theater.
I know this is true because the same thing happened when I went to Grauman's Chinese with my mother to see How the West Was Won. We sat through a good share of the movie, as well-behaved as the rest of the audience, until Debbie Reynolds began steering a raft though river rapids while an intense Alfred Newman soundtrack signaled "hold on, its gonna be a white knuckle ride!" With everyone deadly silent and on the edge of their seats my mother begins shrieking uncontrollably. High pitched screams beyond anything that was ever allowed onto a laugh track. Long story short – after a few minutes it became apparent to the ushers that my mother was incapable of stopping and we were escorted out of the theater. Later my mother explained that she was overcome by the absurdity of little Debbie maneuvering a twelve ton forty foot long raft down the Snake River.
On their first date, my dad took my mother out for fried chicken and the vegan spell was broken. My mother and father both graduated from Lincoln High School and were later married on the 4th of July on Santa Monica Beach in their bathing suits.
Alfonzo's wife, my mother's mother, Dorothia (maiden name: Boada), was in constant mourning for relatives slain in Spain's civil wars which was a major reason for coming to America. According to my mother, Dorothia's mother at one point swam the Hellespont to escape approaching soldiers, never knowing if they were friend or foe. Dorothia lived with my family when I was growing up. In stead of swatting flies that made their way inside our house, she insisted on catching them in a dish towel and then going outside to gently release them.